Talk:Azir/@comment-6281696-20140916213440
How about bruiser Azir top (or mid if you feel so inclined, but I suspect it works better top) Bunch of attackspeed from runes, masteries focussed mostly on defense. Some more AS via berserker graves, combined with 40% CDR this gives you ~1.5 AA/sec, which hurts quite badly. Get a rylais and Liandry's and combined with your high AS and base damage you should be quite a threat to most targets, also gives a good chunk of health. Chalice for mana, CDR and some more AP. Last two slots are for Armor/MR + the remaining CDR, close to everything can work here, you already have a good chunk of health so stuff like a frozen heart pose no problem. Use soldiers to last hit/annoy your opponent, mostly farm. As long as you don't push like a madmand you'd be increadible save (and even if you push, you got quite good escapes if you're paying attention). PLus, even with an APC build you want the late game with him anyway. Why so much AS? Quite simple, his soldiers hit quite hard so let's abuse it. As for a tradional APC build, that's too focussed on raw AP, and you don't need as much AP to put out the same DPS since you don't really have CD's for your most important attack. To give an idea of the damage, it seems to be comparable to what (nearly) full AP Teemo does with AA's, but then in an AOE and with liandry's proccing and no lingering poison. The extra defenses are quite welcome since his effective range seems to vary from halfway across the map to frontline depending on how lucky you end up with positioning. I say lucky because unlike most mages he can't really keep distance consistently as he needs to get relativly close to get the fight started. His summoning distance is quite small when compared to most mages' attacks, and yes you can summon and then Q towards them but that wastes precious time & it wastes a Q (not always a big issue, but still, people are immeadiatly going to scatter after you do that so you'd want to use it again pretty much immeadiatly anyway). Plus, you couldn't telegraph your intentions any more obvious if you do this (assuming you aren't hidden in some way). As such you're not going to be as far to the backline as say a Ziggs. Nor are you going to get the burst of the more assasin focussed mages, and you also don't have any real inherent defenses like for example Swain has to survive long in the frontline. Hence you need a good chunk of defense. Also, it actually gives him room for some advanced plays (like some of the stuff with the wall they showed in the spotlight), if you'd do that with a normal APC build against capable opponents you yourself would be blown up immeadiatly most likely. Why no Rabadons/Zhyona's/Massive AP item? Well, with those items your soldiers's have unmigitated damage of >300 1.5 times per second plus you also have liandry's. And you should have multiple soldiers whenever you fight anyway which further increases that amount. As such there isn't really a need to get a thousand AP, your damage should be good enough without it. Keep in mind so far I've only really tried it against bots (not going to bother with people at the moment.. chances are he's banned 90% of the time or someone elsepicks him or trolls because he couldn't pick him etc. just not worth the effort for the moment). But it sounds like something that should be reasonably good.